Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Mansons - Newcastle's Foremost Punk Band

The Mansons originally flourished in the city of Newcastle, 120kms north of Sydney, Australia from 1981 to 1983.

Starting as a series of jam sessions at the house of Monkee Manson in mid-1981, Harry and Monkee had been school chums from Marist Brothers High School and together decided to change the face of Novocastrian music for ever.

After leaving school Monkee became a metallurgist for B.H.P. and met Curlee Manson, who was also in the same field of study.

Providence begat them a drummer one day when a 14 year old boy came jumping over the fence for a ball. He became enlisted as Donny Manson, later changing his name to Donny Anarchy.

The line up now consisted of Harry Manson on vocals and wig wearing, Monkee Manson on guitar, Curlee on bass and Donny on drums.

Soon afterwards a cool biker friend of Monkee's from the BHP Steelworks snapped this picture (below) of the Mansons at the Newcastle Post Office. His name was Bill Pitt and was also responsible for supply of authentic sixties granny specs which completed the look. Note the great beards!

They played their first gig at the Grand Hotel on the 26th September, 1981 supporting another Novocastrian band, the Nonchalence, later embarking on a series of pub and club gigs that are now legendary.

They were the only band ever to be thrown out of Norths Leagues Club, (which had the reputation at the time of totally supporting the fringe punk and alternative music), because of an altercation one night between Harry and the club manager, along with several huge bouncers. "I still don't know why we set up on the floor that night, as opposed to the stage" recalled Monkee in an interview in 1995, "it happened at the end of the night and we all thought we were going to die." They were thrown out, told they would never be Newcastle's foremost punk band, and told never to return.

With no place to play, the band was forced to go under a series of alternate names such as "Harry M" , "Tate's Mates" and the "Beatles" to get work. With no wives and kids to feed, it didn't really matter.

Finding themselves at a loose end one day they decided to record a single entitled "I Died Four Times". The initial inspiration for the song came from a phone conversation with a old school chum, Greg 'Chook' Coleman, who was lamenting that a mutual friend was taking far too long to die of a series of diseases, "You know he's died four times...but he doesn't want to talk about it!", and so the song was born.

The song became notorious, being played by the famous John Peel on Radio London who was rumored to have announced that it had just as much chance as anything else at achieving success.

It even reached top ten in Yugoslavia, or so it was reported by Kerb McCorrison, who became the Mansons de facto manager during those turbulent times.

The Mansons legendary single "I died four times (But I don't Wanna Talk About It)" and "What is Her Name?"

Kerb became manager after he persistently said he would from the back of a bus one rainy day. They met on a magnificent trip in a double decker bus carrying The Mansons and most of the Newcastle punk scene (almost like a magical mystery tour), through the beautiful Hunter Valley to bring 'punk to the people'. Kerb later toured Europe and was never seen again.

Recording sessions at Angelwood Studios Newcastle on the 10th and 11th May 1982.

They played some great, and some not-so-great gigs around town. Highlights included fantastic shows at Belmont 16 footers, The Castle, South Newcastle Beach Pavilion and many many parties. Some rare recordings have recently come to light after almost 20 years and display the rare energy and fun of the period.

The Mansons continued for a time to progressively fragment and later disintegrate until the end came at the beginning of 1983, just prior to Donny Anarchy leaving Australia for a solo tour of Europe.

They were officially pronounced dead on the 13th March 1983 closing transmission on Sunday night at 11:08pm precisely.

Harry was to later re-emerge in the Ramjets and the Marones with Newcastle fun king Pucko, finally becoming a school teacher. Curlee set about populating the earth with his seed and political science and Monkee became a Hipslinger, an Elvis impersonator, a Wooser Bottom, librarian and archivist. Donny is still performing from time to time with various punk acts such as Skazoo, Raw War and Cash From Chaos.

The Mansons finally received International recognition in 1997 with their inclusion in the punk exhibition "Punkulture" at the Australian Museum along with Sex Pistols and the Clash.

REVIEWS

"Dispensing with my moralising for the moment now that you know my prejudices, it's timely I suppose to let you know what the bands were actually like. First up were The Mansons - tacky name boys. They were well intentioned but something less that inspired. The only thing that warmed me to them was that they smiled a bit (really smiled, not a cynical grin at all) and seemed to want to enjoy themselves. I think I could detect a touch of The Saints as an influence but, er, not quite so intense or together. One of the last songs they played was "Pretty Vacant". Too much of 1977 encroaching here methinks. Not my cup of tea but at least they tried hard."

"I don't know whether to suggest that you take along a flag or a riot shield to this Australia Day Weekend rock music concert. The concert, planned to begin at the South Newcastle Beach pavilion at 3.30pm on Sunday, features the Newcastle groups The Mansons and the Razor Gang. It has been organised by Rival Gang Promotions, so don't heckle the compere, either."

- Newcastle Herald 6/2/1982

"Under the heading of FUN must come The Mansons. Previously I'd written that they weren't "my cup of tea", but I must have been too smashed and/or intensely serious about it all that week to appreciate the dubious yet engaging appeal The Mansons have. During their set three punk-dag "fans", replete with black coats, pants, boots and sunnys, are the only ones dancing.

They jump all over the floor, fall over, slide around and are generally completely uninhibited or suffering from severe withdrawals from hard drugs. They're the perfect foil to The Mansons ridiculously overplayed Sex Pistols/Saints image. The Mansons are pure punk rock vaudeville, and are possibly amongst the worst dressed bands I've ever seen. You really had to laugh at the whole thing, which was just fine.

Incidentally, their music wasn't too bad either: a crass blend of loud, crude pop and punk, played with a minimum of talent and tempered by energetic and unashamed histrionics. My favourite was the singer, if Chris Bailey had overdosed on munchies at McDonalds and been five years behind his time, he would have been vocalist for The Mansons and enjoyed it. Great."

- Mark Mordue (Review of The Allniters Red Orchestra The Mansons gig at Norths Leagues Club Virgin Press, May 1982.

What's in a name?

The Mansons: an unfortunate name for a band because one immediately thinks of convicted killer Charles Manson and his fanatical 'family'.

Still, it's a shade better than the Dead Kennedys. And believe me, the band's perchant for offbeat names is more than matched by its enthusiasm to entertain and perform.

Newcastle boys one and all, bless 'em, the lads have released a double A-sided single What Is Her Name/ I Died Four Times (But I Don't Wanna Talk About It) and are confident that it'll do big things for them. So, do yourselves a favour and ...sorry, Molly.

Both songs were written by guitarist Monkee, recorded at Angelwood Studios (g'day, Peter 'Flash' Sheedy!) and produced and engineered by Graham (Errol) Greenland.

The Mansons have been together about 12 months, playing at parties and occasionally at North Leagues. To say the boys have an enthusiastic following would be an understatement: everywhere the band goes it is pursued by an energetic, high-kicking group of fans who'll hear nothing band about the band. This kind of reaction is usually seen only at the gigs of national and international name acts.

I suppose you could describe The Mansons as '60s poppish'. Yes, it's been said before about a lot of bands but that's the way they hit me. Your opinion might be different.

One thing's for sure and that you'll never make up your mind up until you've witnessed a Mansons performance.

I don't know where Harry learned to shake his legs like that (probably at the same place he bought his Old English Sheepdog wig).

On the 10th and 11th of May 1982 the Mansons went to Angelwood Studios in Newcastle to record two of their songs, 'What is her name?' and 'I Died 4 Times'. At the first session on Monday night they spent 4 (not 1 but 4) hours mucking around until the guy ( the engineer), decided to set the levels.

Suffering from starvation they got Kerb (the manager) to go and buy them a can of coke and they were ok. They started recording - Monkee was dying of nerves, his plectrum kept slipping out of his fingers yet it was boofhead who was making all the mistakes.

After the 757th out take they were described by big boofhead that the bass sounded too sluggish. Curly boofhead immediately kicked the wall and stormed out of the studio muttering something about his mother. They finally put down the music and retired to the couch and the floor to relax.

It was big boofhead's turn to be laughed at and he recorded the vocals to both tracks.

The next night was a Tuesday night and they finally found Curly Boofhead at Homesville by following the trail of smashed cars, damaged trees and dead pensioners that he left behind when he stormed out of the studio the night before. The Tuesday night Monkee arrived late (in comparison to everyone else) and found the whole studio full of people who were 'gonna' sing backups to '4 times'. Harry was blind chit and kept slurring the words, but it was finally recorded without the 'chit choir' and everyone went home to retire.

Anonymous - 18/5/1982

Live Norths 17/9/1982Hunters and Collectors/ The MansonsThe Mansons - at least the Family enjoyed them. A parochial Ramones with psychedelic shirts. See "ABOMINABLE."- Unknown

The Gloss of Fame

Last Year a group of Newcastle musos (well, sorta musos, ya know?) called The Mansons released the single What Is Her Name and B-side I Died Four Times (But I Don't Wanna Talk About It).

Luckily for Newcastle The Mansons later disappeared. But not never to be seen again.

Out of the Mix heard this week that the lead singer of the defunct musicos tres tasteless, Harry Mansons, is now an industrial painter in Darwin.